Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/68

"You see, dear old boy, I've got to see Uncle Andy some time. . ." It was the grotesque name that George, in his babyhood, had given to Mr. Brant, and when he grew up it had been difficult to substitute another. "Especially now———" George added, puffing himself up out of his chair.

"Now?"

They looked at each other in silence, irritation in the father's eye, indulgent amusement in the son's.

"Why, if you and I are really off on this long trek———"

"Oh, of course," agreed Campton, relieved. "You'd much better lunch with them. I always want you to do what's decent." He paused on the threshold to add: "By the way, don't forget Adele."

"Well, rather not," his son responded. "And we'll keep the evening free for something awful."

As he left the room he heard George rapping on the telephone and calling out Miss Anthony's number.

Campton had to have reassurance at any price; and he got it, as usual, irrationally but irresistibly, through his eyes. The mere fact that the midsummer sun lay so tenderly on Paris, that the bronze dolphins of the fountains in the square were spraying the Nereids' Louis Philippe chignons as playfully as ever; that the sleepy Cities of France dozed as heavily on their thrones, and the Horses of Marly pranced as fractiously on their pedestals; that the glorious central